Weather Alert Radios at Meijers Today and This Week – Bill on the radio

Today, Kyle and I were at the Meijer at Kalamazoo Ave. and M-6. from 5 – 6:30 PM. We were selling (at a discount) and programming NOAA weather alert radios. Meijer is running the promotion all month. You get $5 off the regular price. Look in the electronics dept. of your local Meijer store for this special offer. They are like smoke alarms and warn you when severe weather is coming. You can program them to just the county you live in or for several counties (for instance, it you live at the west edge of Kent Co., you’ll probably want to set the alarm to go off for both Kent and Ottawa Counties. You can also pick the type of warning. Everyone will want the alarm to go off for a tornado warning for your area, but you probably won’t want the alarm to go off in the middle of the night for a Fog Advisory. We had a steady line of people from 4:45 to 7 pm at Meijers. They said they sold more in an hour with us there than they had sold in the last 1-2 weeks. We had a number of people bring in their weather radios. We helped them too, making sure the batteries were good and that they were programmed for the right counties. We even had a couple who had moved here from Florida and came to make sure their radio was programmed for Kent Co. I’d like to thank Jim Maczko from the National Weather Service for coming to help program the radios. I met a couple who had been married for 70 years and another gentleman who had served in 3 separate branches of the U.S. Military.

Saturday, Kyle, Matt and I will be on WOOD radio at Noon. That’s 1300 AM and 106.9 FM and on Saturday May 24, Storm Team 8 is partnering with WOOD Radio 1300AM and 106.9 FM to answer your severe weather questions live. Storm Team 8 Chief Meteorologist Bill Steffen (me)and 24 Hour News 8 Daybreak meteorologists Kyle Underwood and Matt Kirkwood will be at the WOOD Radio studios for our special severe weather radio show from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. We invite you to join us to get your questions answered live on the radio. You can occasionally hear me on WOOD with Steve and the gang in the morning and sometimes with Justin Barclay (he has the 9 am – 10 am hour).

I have to go to Meijer’s today but unfortunately not either of the ones on 28th street.
its a very nice mid May day today nice sun and warm temps (I now have 80° here) Also of note the snow is now almost gone in Houghton.

Check the Ripley can and the train 3 cam. Check out the motion and the time lapse to watch the snow melt. Looks like there will not be very many leaves on the trees in parts of the UP for Memorial Day weekend.
SlimJim

A bit of storm moved through at about 3 am. I had the chance to see vivid lightning
Did these storms reach severe status a little to the south of us? All quiet now, I haven’t seen a flash of lightning in about 30 minutes……storms gone or will they coming back soon during this morning?

Jeez ….I’m to old for these all night deals…just got home 30 min ago , put the trash out …now maybe an hour nap and work work work….. I’m glad many got in on the storms , I had a feeling some might pop up although not quiet in the fashion they did , I was surprised when I looked at the radar from kazoo and there were storms heading for my back hard….Too funny. A few SVR warned storms and a good deal of lighting some very brilliant ….overall I would give the storms a 6.0 on a scale to 10. Storms never get old to watch.

Medical insurance could be worse..without jumping directly into the political rabbit whole , if it were only up to the insurers we would be paying more and they wouldn’t cover most , unless you are getting insurance through a group plan / employer ( yes the costs need to come down for the employers as we’ll.).

Il make one last comment , and leave these one ,… But I used to work for one of the largest insurers and providers of benefits ..for example when you may have had those boring HR meetings where someone attempts to go over the benefits you are receiving from your employer and possibly the ones you can participle / contribute to as an employee , well I basically put together the health and dental side mainly that a broker would then pitch to your employer , who would neg with me to land the best deal so to speak. I had to often deal with our own personal insurance companies actuaries …. I will keep it short…what they do to asses / spread risk is unreal …..agreed we need to work on what we have , but oh my the alternative is not better ….back to weather….

My own insurance (just MINE, Hubby has moved on to Medicare) went from $450/month, to $675/month. Part of that additional expense is because it’s now mandated that I carry MATERNITY CARE…ROFLMAO!!!!!!

As a senior citizen, with a paid-off house – medical insurance is the single biggest expense I have And it’s even sadder (in a way), because I’m ridiculously healthy and don’t use it – but as Rad said – you don’t dare be without it.

Ya , I hear ya GLD , we need to work on it for sure as I was speaking to the majority , but that’s not to discount you having to pay more. If you don’t mind me asking , I would guess you hv more robust coverage other then maternity coverage , but I’m just guessing…( or lower deductible etc ) Btw thanks for your posts last night.

My oldest daughter was forced into Obamacare. Her premiums are much higher and she now has a nearly $6,000 deductible! You can have a baby for less than 6K! There’s a lot of relatively young people that are shelling out a LOT more money than they will ever see in benefit.

That is great you can program it to not go off for a fog advisory. When you say the middle fo the night, does that mean there is a time feature where you can have it go off durring the day and not at night?

I wish the WOOD TV text message alerts would do that. I like knowing there is going to be a Winter Storm Watch a couple of days in advance, but I do not like getting awakened at 4 AM for something that is not going to come for 2 days.

I have one of those radios with the “SAME” technology. It will alert in the middle of the night; but only for stuff that you choose, like “Tornado warning”. Mine’s a Midland, and will also give text explanations for any alerts, etc along with warning lights, in case you weren’t home when the warning was signaled. A very nice radio – and a push of a button gives you instant access to the NOAA weather broadcast.

At least, that’s what mine DID, until they surrounded Gun Lake with cell towers and now my radio doesn’t receive squat

I just downloaded the updated Woodtv app and it STILL does not allow me to view comments and post! What a joke! Bill, if you are reading this, will you pass this on that the app creator needs to get this fixed!

Wowsers , I’m so paying for last night….lol. It was fun to watch the storms , it really was and I think I needed to get out because I saw we would have tame weather for the near to medium future., that and it kinda was our first decent SVR chance at weather. It will be nice to visit my bed later tonight , that much is guaranteed .. ! I took some a few hail,pics , I will share when I have an opportunity later today and lighting photos as well….Thanks again for those who let me know ere some of the storms might be….I will never forget my wifi again , as I visited more McDonalds in one night to use there free wifi then nearly the past 25 years.

Well the storm chasing yesterday was fun. I got into the northern less agressive end of the hail core north of Kzoo (Pea-dime size). Got some good lightning video at the Gas Station at D Avenue near the McDonald’s parking lot. I will share once I get the chance. Ohh and Darren, I am not sure if it was you or not but while I was at the carpool area a silver car pulled in and was there for a little while. Not sure if that was you are not but I kind of assumed it was. I definantly didint need to get into hail again. I got caught in Quarter to Golfball size near Sand Lake on April 12 of this year and got some pretty nastly little dents on my car hood

Sorry I didn’t get to the comments sooner, Laura – Yes, we programmed all the radios that were brought in, regardless of where they were purchased and regardless of brand. If you can get over to the National Weather Service by the airport, one of the meteorologists may be able to help you with that, especially Jim Maczko, the Warning Coordinating Meteorologist.